


Office Space

by recoveringrabbit



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Academia, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Epistolary, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 09:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16092353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/pseuds/recoveringrabbit
Summary: In which a university's shocking lack of offices for its faculty force a felicitous academic cohabitation.[FitzSimmons fall in love over a school year]





	Office Space

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agent85](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent85/gifts).



> JANE. I heard you like Teacher AUs so I started this for you last year for your birthday, and then, you know. Life. But in the intervening time it got about three times as long as I expected, so win-win? Happy birthday, gorgeous friend!

Much to his relief, the room revealed when the door swings open smells of lemon oil and lavender, without a whiff of formaldehyde or—his worst nightmare—decay. Bookshelves line one paneled wall, the desk stands in the middle of the room with an ergonomic chair behind and a less comfortable one in front, and there isn’t room for anything else except for a framed periodic table hanging in pride of place at the back.

“I told you,” Bobbi says, shoving past him to set the box of stationery she’s carrying on the desk. “You’re a scientist too; you know no one would do dissections outside a sterile environment.”

Fitz sets his own box on the ground and lets his computer bag fall onto the student chair. There’s officially just enough room for him to take a step forwards to peer at the shelves, so he does so in a futile bid to keep Bobbi from noticing his shamefacedness. “It might cling to her clothes. Like a mortician.”

“Ah, yes. Because we have so many morticians in our acquaintance.”

“That sounded like Hunter.”

“You take on characteristics of people you spend a lot of time with,” Bobbi shrugs, then looks at her watch. “Wish I could stay to help you unpack, but I have a department meeting in ten minutes. Jemma said she left you a note, so I expect she’s given you way, way more information than you’ll need to settle in, but send me a text if you need anything.”

“Okay,” he says, canting his head sideways to decipher the Latin on several book spines. “Am I still invited for dinner?”

“Hunter is slaving over the mushrooms as we speak.” She ruffles his hair as she passes behind him. “Good luck, Fitz. Glad you’re here.”

The door closes behind her and Fitz takes his first deep breath in his very own office—his for the next term, at least, while its owner is on sabbatical and the university finishes its new science building. Considering that it’s already beat the flimsy cubicle he previously shared with three other adjuncts by virtue of being _his_ and _having walls_ , he’s willing to overlook the technicality. He _is_ , finally, a full professor at a respected university; the fact that the university hasn’t got enough offices for its staff is a problem endemic to academia in general and not worth feeling badly about. And this office is perfectly adequate: neat, clean, well-organised, a blank space. He thinks he can be happy here.

Shoving aside the box on the ground with his foot, he moves towards the desk to find the promised note. First things first: clear some floor space by putting books on the shelves. He doesn’t want to mess up the owner’s system, though, and tears open the white envelope with his name— _Dr. Leopold Fitz—_ scrawled across it, hoping to find some direction.

 

> _Dear Dr. Fitz,_
> 
> _First, welcome to Carter 616! I expect, if you’re as hands-on as Bobbi says you are, you won’t spend much time here, but I find that it meets my needs very well and hope it does the same for you._
> 
> _Second, I have cleared some shelves for your use. Should you require more space, feel free to remove the vases and things to push the books together, but please do not rearrange the books. Along this same line, should you desire to consult one of my books you are more than welcome, but be sure to put it back in its place. I’ve spent a long time creating an efficient and logical organisational system, but it requires regular maintenance to remain tidy. Remember “E is for emerald is for engineering” and you shouldn’t have any problems._

He glances up and finds the empty shelves, bounded by two green bookends. Emerald, he corrects himself, for engineering, and notices her books are similarly set off by small blue vases. For biology? Likely.

 

> _Third, I may pop in periodically to retrieve books I require for my research, should the need arise. I expect to spend much of the term overseas, however, so I shall soon be firmly out of your hair._
> 
> _Fourth, though I realise this may be presumptuous of me, I thought I would tell you from one Brit to another that the tea situation in the staff room is dire. Best bring your own. On that subject, you may find something worth your attention in the bottom drawer of the desk._

Darting around to tug open the surprisingly deep drawer, he laughs at the sight of a two-cup travel kettle nestled behind several hanging file folders.

 

> _Technically it isn’t allowed, but in this one instance I am willing to bend the rules. As long as you never plug it in at the same time as your laptop it won’t overload the circuits, and it has overheating protection so it can’t set a fire. When one’s life is at stake—as it can be, after office hours—denying one a proper brew amounts to cruel and unusual punishment._
> 
> _Fifth, please accept my best wishes for your first term here! I hope you’ll be very happy. I expect you will be, as long as you stay clear of the hundred-year-war between Weaver and Dean Coulson and don’t let Dormer and Gill disrupt class entirely. I look forward to meeting you, either soon or when I return next term._
> 
> _Regards,_
> 
> _Jemma Simmons_

Fitz finds himself looking forwards to it, too, hoping it will be sooner rather than later. They’d get on, this Jemma Simmons and he, if her note is anything to go by. In the meantime, he has three classes to plan for and a box of books to shelve, and the space poster hung on the back of the door—the same one that hangs over the chest of drawers in his bedroom—only seems like further confirmation that everything will work out all right.

And it does, overall—Fitz isn’t new to teaching, even if he’s new to the school, and he enjoys himself even more than he thought he would. He likes his colleagues, he likes most of his students, he loves his lab. He likes his office, too, though he doesn’t spend a great deal of time in it; twice a week he has to sit there for office hours, but the chair isn’t comfortable enough to keep any students there if they aren’t in fear for their grades and they’re more likely to chat to him after class or before a lab. Like the office’s permanent occupant, he keeps his books on the shelves and drinks covert cups of tea behind the desk, and that’s about it.

The office’s previous occupant does pop by, though he’s out when she does. He wouldn’t know she had come except that she leaves him notes: _I’ve taken some of my books, no need to call campus safety. P.S. I like your picture of Charles Babbage_ , the first one said, and then _I’ve just read your CV in the new staff announcements—I didn’t know you studied with Dr. Hall! He oversaw my first thesis. What a small world._

After that one, he finds her thesis on the shelves, curious why a physicist had overseen her doctorate in biology. He doesn’t have a lot of time to read it, but after he does he writes his own note and posts it to their door for her to retrieve next time she pops in:

_Dr. Hall is brilliant but you passed him up in the third chapter. No wonder you need tea after office hours; I get a headache every time._

It sits there for a week or two and he has enough time to regret it immensely before it disappears. Her response is propped up against a bottle of ibuprofen:

_If you’ve read the whole thing you’ve joined an elite society—I think there were five people on my committee, so you’ll be the seventh member. Do you need more shelf space? I’ve noticed your piles on the floor._

He writes back _no, sorry. It’s been a crazy week—I’ve never had three tests to set and grade at the same time. Rookie mistake. You’ll see they’re back now._

There’s no way to guarantee they’ll be back the next time she comes, but he tries to keep himself tidy after that. Fortunately, she’s understanding:  _My first term I assigned my survey course a biology notebook they had to turn in on Friday so I could return it Monday. Weekends, you can imagine, were non-existent. I don’t even make attendance mandatory for survey classes now._

_I didn’t know that was a possibility. I think I’m the equivalent of the annoying freshman who sits in the front row and takes copious notes just in case it’s on the test—always crossing every t._

_I was that annoying freshman. I still am, at my heart—I’ve just learnt by now not to throw pearls before swine. Good luck on midterms! I’m off home until after New Year. I hope the rest of your semester goes well, Dr. Fitz._

He keeps those notes with her first one in the top drawer of the desk, regretting slightly that he’ll have to wait until January to meet her now. But there are midterms to set and essays to grade, and the term disappears before he realises it. At Christmas he removes his books and his picture of Babbage, leaves a tin of very good tea and his own note— _thanks for letting me use your office, meet you soon, be warned that the hundred-year-war looks primed to stretch into a second century—_ and sleeps the sleep of the righteous for the entirety of the winter break.

Then, two days before term begins, an email goes round to the science department, informing them that due to circumstances outside the administration’s control, the new science building will not be ready for occupancy for another term at least, and possibly two. Anyone who has an office will keep it; anyone who hasn’t got an office will share temporary cubicles for the duration. Out of protest, Fitz decides to hold office hours in the campus coffee shop. He doesn’t need to have all his books available all the time anyway.

“Cubicles aren’t the end of the world,” Bobbi points out, sliding into the seat across from him about a week into the term. “Better than spending all your money buying bad coffee.”

“It’s bad tea,” he corrects. “I can’t do it again, Bobbi. Better to be homeless than share with an idiot who leaves crisp packets and pictures of kittens everywhere.”

Bobbi somehow manages to look wise while sucking down a bright pink frappe. “Is it sharing you can’t stand, or sharing with idiots?”

“Both.” He thinks a minute, then relents. “Sharing with idiots. I didn’t mind sharing with Dr. Simmons last term. But that doesn’t count, does it? She wasn’t really there. Maybe she leaves crisp packets about too.”

“She doesn’t eat chips,” Bobbi says thoughtfully. “I wonder...”

Fitz doesn’t get to hear what she wonders, because the first student shows up to complain about his policy of not offering extra credit and Bobbi vanishes like a ninja, as is her habit. Nor does he have time to wonder about it; students keep him busy until he has to run for it to make his next class. It doesn’t set a good example for the students if the teacher’s late on the first day. He makes it just in the nick of time, pulling up his powerpoint as the minute hand hits the twelve, and he doesn’t find the note until after class is done.

 

> _Dear Dr. Fitz,_
> 
> _I came to your class to try to speak with you, but you weren’t here and I’m afraid I couldn’t wait around. I have a proposal for your attention. Could you stop by our office today around four to discuss it?_
> 
> _Regards,_
> 
> _Jemma Simmons_

He stands awkwardly in the corridor outside the office until two minutes past four, not wanting to seem too eager, and has to stop himself from dashing to the loo to make sure his hair isn’t standing on end from his habit of running his hands through it when he’s lecturing. At three past, he lightly raps against the doorframe and rocks back on his heels, for all the world as nervous as an undergraduate coming before the dean.

“Come in!” a cheery voice calls, and he knew she was English but he didn’t know she was from the North, and her notes take on a totally different sound in his head. Her smile looks different in real life too—the grainy black-and-white photo posted in the science office doesn’t even begin to capture the sun-like beam that emanates from her person. That’s the first thing he notices as she gets to her feet and sticks out her hand for him to shake.

“Jemma Simmons, biochemist,” she says, “chair of the biology department, avid tea drinker, chronic organizer. I’m so pleased to finally meet you, Dr. Fitz.”

“Just Fitz,” he manages to say, juggling his ideas notebook between his elbows so he can take her hand. “Hopeful tenure track candidate, fan of pretzels, terrible piler. It’s good to put a face with your handwriting.”

She laughs like he’s said something much cleverer and gestures for him to sit in the student chair, apologizing with a grimace. Waving her off, he slides his notebook onto the desk, where two mugs faintly steam. “I thought tea might set the right tone,” she says, following his gaze and sitting herself. Her hands fold together like she’s trying to keep them still. “I realize I’m about to say something rather—unorthodox, really, but I want you to feel welcome here. Do you?”

His own fingers tighten around the handle, and the surface of the liquid becomes suddenly storm-tossed. “Uh, yes?” he squeaks, entirely at sea. “Everybody’s been really kind and helpful, overall. I haven’t got anything to complain about. Except not having a proper office, but that isn’t entirely their fault.”

“Yes, exactly,” she says, apropos of he’s not sure what, and she leans back in her chair looking strangely relieved. “I’m glad you said that.”

Suddenly remembering that she’s the head of the biology department and in tight with Weaver, the Science Dean, Fitz sets his tea quickly back on the desk and all but jumps forwards, feeling his throat closing up. “Is this about office hours in the coffee shop? Am I being cautioned? It’s not meant to be rebellious, I just can’t work in cubicles.”

“Dr. Fitz!” She holds up both hands, her fingers delicately bent but her palms saying a firm _stop_. “It isn’t about that. Well, it is, but not like that—you aren’t being reprimanded. Surely your own department head would do that, anyway. I just—Bobbi mentioned that you were without an office space and I wondered—I thought—well, I’m so rarely here anyway, and you’ve developed a reputation for living in the lab as well, so perhaps we could just—continue on as we were last term?”

If his throat was tight before, it’s shrunk to a pin-width now. He just looks at her, silently reviewing her statement to be sure he’s understood it. “Share the office, you mean,” he says finally.

“Yes,” she says with a firm nod.

“But you’re not away this term. Surely you’ll need it.”

“Not especially,” she says, “I only use it for office hours, really, and I can just have those while you’re in class. And you can have yours while I am. It’s just a space to drink tea and keep our books, really, isn’t it? At least, Bobbi said—”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s true.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. Could it work? The desk is hardly big enough for the two of them, but she’s right that he was never here even last term when he had it all to himself. He can still work in coffee shops and the labs. It would be nice to have a place to hang his coat. Still—“It seems like an imposition. There’s no reason for you to do it.”

“There’s also no reason not to,” she says brightly. “It would be a pleasure, honestly, Dr. Fitz.”

He picks his tea back up again to buy himself a minute to think. As he does, his eye falls on an empty space in the middle of the bookshelves, flanked by two green bookends. This despite the pile of books in a neat stack by the desk. She must mean it, he realizes, and he finds himself nodding without coming to a conscious decision. “But we’ll have to have a new section,” he says. “P is for purple is for physics.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing myself,” she agrees, sunshine smile back in full force, and clinks her mug against his.

They finish their tea while comparing schedules, and Fitz moves his books in as soon as facilities can make him a key. And then nothing changes, really. They truly don’t see each other, even though they ostensibly work in the same department; she’s always busy with classes and overseeing theses and department meetings, while he does honestly prefer to be in the lab whenever possible. The tea disappears more quickly, is all, and the new Physics section—bounded by two gorgeous geodes—holds their dissertations side by side.

The notes continue too.

First it started with housekeeping updates: _I’ve had to arrange a meeting with a student for Tuesday afternoon; I hope that’s all right_ and  _they were out of Yorkshire but PG Tips is better than nothing_. Then one day he finds a note squared neatly in the centre of the desk: _I do love teaching, honestly, but sometimes I forget that’s true. Why did not a single one of my survey students receive higher than 50 percent on the quiz on classification systems I gave them this morning?_

_For the same reason I can’t get anyone to remember the laws of thermodynamics. I don’t even mean the zeroth law. Just the normal ones._

_A crime! They’re so beautiful. I memorized them like poetry. I have faith in your ability to connect the students with the material. Mine have done marginally better this week, and I had the funniest short answer. Please enjoy, with names unattached._

He laughs aloud at the scrap of paper she’s paper-clipped to the note and spends ten minutes hunting up the doodle he found on a test last week, writing back _things like this make it worth it_.

After that he hardly ever comes into the office without finding a note from her, and he certainly never leaves without writing one. They aren’t about anything much—brief anecdotes of amusement or annoyance, recommendations for articles—but he finds himself going to the office more than he otherwise would, just in case.

 _I’ve read your dissertation too_ , she writes one day. The note sits atop a fat sheaf of computer printouts. _That’s how I know you can help me with this: can this be right?_  

She’s left him an abstract and sheets upon sheets of elegant, complex calculations, several of which are circled in red ink. He’s elbow-deep in them before he realizes that he’s looking at something entirely new. It can’t be anything but her latest, as yet unpublished, work. His pen makes a quick journey off the side of the page, leaving a long blue streak across his scratch paper.

 _By and large yes,_ he writes back once he’s spent two days he should have been writing an exam working through it. _There were a few issues I noted, but I think they only support your thesis further._ His first draft contained several scribbles before the next sentence, which he excised when writing the clean copy. _It was a privilege to look at it for you._

_I wouldn’t trust anyone else with it._

Picking up her note during his Friday lab’s ten-minute break, he inhales slowly and dashes off a response before he has time to second-guess himself.

_I hope this doesn’t come across the wrong way, but I wondered if you had considered utilizing the Banner Theorem? I think it would make your proofs stronger in the second stage and support the fourth more elegantly. Just a thought._

Of course, he neglected to take into consideration the fact that he wouldn’t have time to get back to the office before the weekend, and it seems silly to make a special trip just to see if there’s been a response to his arrogant, over-the-line suggestion. What he should have done is make a trip to clear his things out of the office since she would clearly never want to speak to him again. He should have known better than to insinuate someone as brilliant as Dr. Jemma Simmons wouldn’t have already considered and rejected something as elementary as the Banner Theorem. For Lord’s sake.

Fortunately, most of the weekend is occupied by writing not one but two exams, so by Monday morning he’s only been able to work himself into a _mild_ panic, rather than the full-blown one he would have otherwise expected. He arrives on campus fully three hours before his usual time and camps out in Bobbi’s office until he’s sure Dr. Simmons will be in Biology 101.

After all that stress, it almost feels like a cheat when the note left under a barely-warm mug of tea on the desk reads _I thought I might catch you this morning to thank you in person, but I think we have different ideas of what constitutes ‘being early’. The Banner Theorem is a brilliant suggestion and a solution that hadn’t occurred to me; I’ve spent the weekend reworking my maths and you’re right, it’s far more elegant. I’m so lucky to have you as my second set of eyes._

He jots back _it was nothing, really_ and adds a juicy tidbit of department gossip she’ll likely appreciate, and that’s the end of it. Or rather, it _should_ have been the end of it. Apparently, having already shown him her proofs Dr. Simmons no longer feels the need to tidy her work away when she’s not in the office; she leaves scrap paper and computer printouts and all manner of things lying about, so that it becomes very difficult to find her notes to him without stumbling over her notes on half a dozen other things—which wouldn’t be a problem if she weren’t so blooming clever. But she is. Her ideas get caught in his head like a song, burbling along in the background as he teaches and has office hours and reads and cleans his kitchen, blaring out a top volume when he commutes and before he goes to sleep at night. A song, though, has a set melody and lyric. Somehow, in the space between work and home and sleep and dreaming, her ideas spark new ones in his head, ideas that aren’t content to flare up and out, but persist in combining with her kindling to make a new blaze. He’s building on her work and he’s not even really meant to know about it.

Even this would be a non-issue if it were a regular term week. Instead, he hasn’t got anything much to do except proctor exams and feed scantrons through the machine, so he has plenty of time to muse on the possibilities. And again, this would be a non-issue if he could just keep his science daydreams to appropriate hours, but they’re too intoxicating, and demand a great deal of attention. And even then, it might have been all right if he hadn’t drifted away in the middle of watching a football match with Hunter, who was disinclined to accept “just thinking” as an excuse.

“Oh, all right, I’m thinking about Dr. Simmons, are you satisfied?”

“You’re—” Hunter’s eyes grow wide and gleeful. “Mate, I had no idea. How long has that been going on?”

“How long has—oh, no. Nooo.” He makes a slashing motion with his hand, eager to cut off Hunter’s wild imagination before it can grow. “I’m thinking about the paper she’s writing.”

“Of course you are,” Hunter sighs.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing you haven’t heard me say a million times already.” They pause briefly to yell at a particularly boneheaded pass and knock back a disconsolate swig from their beers before Hunter elaborates. “I suppose this paper’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, well. Of course not. But it is pretty brilliant and I keep coming up with new applications for the theory. I’ve been trying to get some of them down, but it seems premature since she’s not even close to publishing. Don’t want to forget about them, though.”

“Don’t suppose you’ve said anything to her about it.”

“Are you mental?” Fitz takes another drink, shaking his head. “Me, say something to her? She deserves the space to work it out without anyone bothering her. I shouldn’t take advantage of her trust.”

“How’d you see it in the first place, if you’re so set on not abusing her trust?”

“She asked me to look at some equations, just to be sure they were right.”

Just at that moment his team moves the ball into the box and keeps it there for a very exciting two minutes, complete with two attempts on the goal, so it takes him a second to get back in the conversation when Hunter says “I dunno, it seems like, if she asks you to look at her work, she’s asking what you think about it. She might like to hear what you’ve come up with.”

“Hunter, no offence, but you don’t really understand academia.”

“And I am grateful every day,” Hunter says, “but Jemma’s come around for dinner a few times and I think I might have a decent idea about her. Just a thought.”

As his thoughts are already more than occupied, he doesn’t give Hunter’s suggestion much consideration. He and Dr. Simmons write back and forth at least once a day, but not about her work; between the results of their midterms and NASA’s reports on Juno, they have enough to talk about.

 _Sorry about my papers everywhere,_ she writes a week after that. _It’s been an excessively busy week, and my mind is even more all-over than my paper, if you can believe it. I would shudder to let you see my desktop. Do you ever feel that way?_

_Only all the time. Trying to keep four classes of two sections straight, in addition to my own stuff? It’s a wonder I remember to buy milk. Actually, I think I’m out? Better check._

_And if you don’t have milk, how can you have tea? What are you working on?_

He hesitates. The truth is, he’s dumped most of the research he’s meant to be doing in favor of writing out all the ideas her work has given him, hiding them in a subfolder until such time as it won’t be presumptuous to explore them further. He probably shouldn’t say that, though. The last thing he wants is to come off like he’s thinking of stealing her work.

_This and that. Nothing worth talking about yet—honestly, I’m not just putting you off. It’ll take a bit to turn into anything. I was out of milk, by the way. Fortunately I went to Great Chain of Bean and confused the barista tremendously by asking for a cup of milk—yes, just milk—before I left._

_Of all the coffee shops on this campus, I think that’s the best. Their frappes are to die for. I don’t treat myself very often, but sometimes one just needs something to push through the afternoon._

_I need something almost every day,_ he writes, chewing uncomfortably on the end of his pen _, and it sounds like you need one this week._ He places a napkin under the already-sweating frappe and glances at his watch, scribbling faster: _Don’t know if you have a favorite but—_

“Dr. Fitz?”

His head shoots up at the voice in the doorway, and he glances desperately at his watch again. “Dr. Simmons! You’re early.”

“Am I?” She glances at her own watch, then shakes her head. “Perhaps, but no earlier than I usually am. I rather think you’re here later.”

“Maybe.” He straightens, gesturing helplessly at the frappe on the desk. “I wanted to give this a decent chance of still being frozen for you. Melted frappe is—”

“—horrible, that’s true.” She steps into the office, one arm making a cross over her body as she grabs her opposite wrist. “You bought me a frappe?”

He shrugs, thinking it obvious.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“No,” he says, “but I wanted to. Thought you might need it at the end of a long week.”

“Well, it’s very kind of you.”

“No trouble, really.”

“Dr. Fitz.” Taking another step forward, she bites her bottom lip. “I’ve been wondering something, but it hasn’t seemed...I suppose it’s rather an odd question to ask in a note. Since we’ve run into each other, though.”

He comes around the front of the desk and leans against it, hoping he looks nonchalant, only to realize that might be making too free with what is technically her property and jump up. “Sure. Anything. Ask away.”

She takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders, clearly bracing herself for the question: “do you want to be proper friends?”

All words desert him, and he twists the pen between his fingers desperately. “Er. Um, wha—”

“Or not, if you don’t want—I know it’s all a bit primary school to ask for friendship, but I didn’t know how to make our notes translate into real life without being a bit awkward. It’s just, I think we’ve got a good deal in common and Bobbi says we’d get on well, and I’d enjoy having someone to eat lunch with—”

“Yes.”

Stopping as suddenly as she began, Dr. Simmons quickly closes her mouth, her eyebrows furrowing. “Just like that?”

“Well”—not quite sure what to do with his hands, Fitz crosses his arms, then decides that’s too stand-offish and lets them fall to his sides—“we’ve already got six months of trying it out. I don’t know why it wouldn’t work if we could say more than two sentences to each other at a time.”

“Right.” She lets out her deep breath and grins; he can’t help but smile back. “Okay, that’s sorted. Don’t you have a lecture now?”

Another glance at his watch proves her absolutely right, and he swears under his breath as he gathers up his things. “Yeah, so, see you later, I hope you like the frappe.”

“I’m sure I will,” she says, sliding to the side to clear the path to the doorway. “Thank you, Dr. Fitz.”

He pauses in the doorway, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. “Er, just Fitz. That’s what my friends call me—my first name’s—”

“Leopold.” Seeing his surprise, she rushes to explain. “It says in your email.”

“Yeah, so you can see why I don’t use it.”

“Fitz, then. And I’m Jemma.”

“Jemma,” he repeats, smiling again. “Nice to be friends with you.”

That’s the beginning of a whole new chapter in their relationship—a better, face-to-face one. Somehow, though their schedules are no less opposite than they’ve been all semester and they can’t meet regularly at all, they exchange phone numbers to coordinate enough time in coffee runs and copy runs and the brief minutes they can overlap at the office to build what anyone would call a proper friendship. They don’t need much. Six months of preliminaries mean that the groundwork has already been laid; it’s like spending six months in theory before suddenly being allowed in the lab. He already knows her sharp mind and sense of humor and ruthless practicality, and he loves learning the movements of her eyebrows and the sound of her laugh. When they’re together, Fitz finds himself rethinking the elasticity of time, not sure how a half-hour can both seem to disappear in the space of two blinks and stretch to allow for the far-ranging discussions they cram into them.

 _Why is it,_ he texts her one afternoon after a particularly good conversation is cut short by a student collaring him in the hallway in tears, _that time moves particularly slowly just when you want it to go the quickest? And vice versa, of course. PS. Marietta went through all your tissues, I’ll bring more after the weekend. I would feel sorry for her if I hadn’t been warning her all semester that she has got to pay attention to her basic computations._

_No need to bring tissues; I’ve got loads at home. As far as recalcitrant students, if you find a solution please feel free to share. As far as time, since it’s relative who is to say it doesn’t actually stretch itself during particularly terrible office hours?_

_Um, yes. That’s not exactly how it works._

_Of course it doesn’t, Fitz. Had that been an in-person conversation rather than a written one, my tone of voice and body language would have signified a joke. Text-based communication is not always ideal, though useful in a pinch. Can you imagine how people used to collaborate over hundreds of miles, by post? How lucky to live in the modern age. On another matter entirely, have you noticed Dean Coulson humming more than usual lately? I think his relationship with the violinist must be picking up tempo._

_No, she’s a cellist, not a violinist—but yes, I have noticed. Think there’s any likelihood that will result in a downgrade in hostilities?_

_We can only hope. I’ve left another page for you to look over, if you don’t mind—I seem to have worked myself into a corner, and I’m not sure which way is up, much less out. Happy Friday! I’m off, but I’ll chat to you after the weekend._

The page she’s left is another brilliant piece of work that would, were such a thing not patently ridiculous, make his heart beat faster, but he can see almost instantly where she’s gone wrong. It’s the same place she always does, getting so fixated on the intricacies of the maths that she fails to see the broader implications. In fact—he shoves back in the chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. In fact, he’s got half an application in his secret subfolder that would solve the problem decisively, but it’s attached to another three, more fully-formed ideas that would be pretty difficult to remove. She has asked for his help, she wants it, he’s her second set of eyes—but does he dare?

 _Okay,_ he taps out with shaky thumbs. _I’ve got an idea about this, but it’s pretty intense. I don’t know how much work you’re willing to do._

She writes back instantly. _Your last suggestion made the thing ten times better. I trust anything you say will be equally brilliant._

Permission requested and granted, he has no reason to delay but his own cowardice. Or mortification? Whatever it is, the idea of laying out exactly how much her work has consumed his imagination makes him feel slightly sick, but not as sick as leaving her without an answer. After a quick run to the loo to splash some water on his face, he screws up every ounce of courage he has and uploads all his work in one massive attachment:

_I’m sorry if this is too much, but I find your ideas really inspiring._

He sends it to her university email, hoping she won’t see it until Monday when he can apologise profusely in person if he’s irrevocably freaked her out. When his phone rings the second his last class finishes, though, he instantly realises he should have known better.

“H’lo?”

“Oh, Fitz!” she says breathlessly, “Fitz, how long have you been sitting on this? Not even you could do all this in twenty minutes.”

“Um,” he stalls, trying to decide if she’s angry or excited, “since you first showed me your work. Before midterms. So a month? Six weeks?”

“Why didn’t you say anything before? We’ve lost so much time!”

Not angry, then, but she seems to be making leaps he can’t follow. “What?”

“I wanted to send this off for peer review for the fall issue, but now with your work it may have to wait until winter. It would be irresponsible to try to publish without including the applications, you’re absolutely right. What are you doing this weekend?”

“Watching football with Hunter on Sunday like always, he records the matches—”

“Come round to mine tonight,” she demands, “I’ll text you the address. We can’t waste any more time.”

“I—er—”

“Unless,” she says, suddenly subdued, “you’d rather not collaborate. Which is understandable, of course, I don’t want to shove in—”

“No! No, I’d love to collaborate.” A flood of relief rushes through him so quickly, he almost has to put a hand to the wall to keep himself up. “Yes. I would love that. What time?”

“As soon as you can,” she says briskly, “We can order pizza.”

They do order pizza, working straight through dinner and then eating it again for a snack at about two a.m. When he wakes up at seven with the imprint of her sofa cushion on his cheek, she’s already got a pot of oatmeal on the stove “for brain food,” she explains, and they don’t stop again until they emerge, high on science and slightly punch-drunk, at six on Saturday night. He hasn’t showered, hasn’t hardly eaten or slept, has spent nearly twenty-four hours straight with a woman he had never been alone with before—and all he wants is to dive back in, to sit with her and do science at the heady depths they’re both finding it difficult to swim up from. He’s ravenous, but not for food.

Her hair frizzes out around her pale face as she looks at him over a burrito, wonder in her tired eyes. “I don’t know that I’ve ever had such a sustained period of good work,” she says.

He shakes his head, mouth too full to answer.

“It’s really remarkable. Honestly, Fitz, I know I’m sleep deprived and a bit malnourished, but I truly feel as though you and I work together to the power, not just the multiple.”

It’s a strange metaphor, but he understands and agrees. Finally able to swallow, he says “I thought we might, from the first time I read your thesis. It was like...I recognised myself in your work.”

“I thought the same.” She laughs a little. “It was your stacks of books, honestly. I thought we might be friends from then.”

“I don’t know if I went that far. But I thought we might do good work together.”

She rests her chin in one hand and cants her head, regarding him thoughtfully. “Why didn’t you say anything before? We could have been doing this for ages.”

“Dunno.” He takes another bite to get away from her gaze, which has turned skeptical. If he takes long enough, she’ll probably continue and he won’t have to answer for real. Only she doesn’t allow that, watching him steadily until this bite, too, disappears, when she raises one eyebrow with clear expectations. He squirms, considers taking another bite, and decides it won’t matter in the end. “You’re so brilliant, truly, and your work can stand on its own two feet. I didn’t want to take anything away from it.”

“That is,” she says, each word snapping like a biscuit, “the largest load of hogwash I’ve ever heard. We’re scientists, aren’t we? Collaboration is an intrinsic part of our discipline. And  _you’re_ brilliant, Fitz; look what you’ve done just from your own mind with only glimpses of my work! It would be a disservice to keep it to yourself.”

Looking down at the table, he mumbles a response. “I meant to publish it after a decent amount of time. With your permission.”

“There, now. We’ve got to exactly the same place, only sooner.” A silent second passes , then her voice comes tiptoeing in: “And it’s better because we’re friends, not distant colleagues. Don’t you think?”

He nods, still not looking up, and she waits a minute before asking his opinion on when they can reasonably expect the paper to be ready to submit.

“Oh, not until the summer, I expect,” he says, suddenly weary. “I’ve got exams, and so do you. And end-of-the-year things.”

“Right.” Setting her burrito down in its nest of foil, she leans back in her chair. “Well, at least we’ve got a reason to see each other over the summer. Aside from, well—”

She presses her lips together and shakes her head, a clear sign she doesn’t want to finish her sentence even though he’s dying to know what she would have said. But she didn’t push him, so he lets it be.

The next few weeks are a whirlwind, all desperate students and reams of paper and vats of coffee—Fitz is up to his ears in marking and Jemma has all his duties and more. Her paper—their paper, as she insists on calling it—waits more or less patiently until they’ve got their senior class graduated and their final grades turned in. As is his custom at the end of a term, Fitz sleeps for two days straight. His phone chimes the morning of the third day:

_Sorry if it’s too early, but you did say two days! When are you available to work on our paper?_

He scrubs one hand over his face and tries to blink the sleep crust from his eyes. _yeah yeah, half a mo. just woke up._

_I can tell by your punctuation. Do you need more time? I’m sorry to bother you._

_You’re not a bother. Never that. I’m looking forward to it, I swear._

_Let’s meet for breakfast first, then. You can have as much bacon as you like and I promise I won’t say a word._

He’s ready in an embarrassingly short time and meets her at a diner halfway between their apartments, where she has already ordered him a hot cocoa and set a proper tea bag by his napkin. Sliding across from her, Fitz meets her welcoming smile with one of his own. “It feels like I haven’t seen you for a year.”

“Oh, I know. It’s always that way at the end of term, though. Are you feeling sufficiently rested?”

“I am.” He takes a sip of cocoa and licks the whipped cream from his lip. “I can now move on to the second stage of decompression, which is rehashing everything that went wrong over the year.”

Her eyes light up. “That sounds delightful. May I join? I have some truly terrible stories.”

“By all means.”

They talk without stopping for three hours, conversation ranging from their failures to their successes to their predictions for their past students to their desires for their future ones, and somehow it isn’t until they’ve said goodbye that Fitz realizes they didn’t talk about the paper at all. Jemma expresses her disbelief via text later, and they make another appointment for the next day. But they don’t get nearly the amount of work done they expect, so they have to meet again the day after that, and then the day after, until they’re seeing each other for at least a few hours nearly every day. It’s intoxicating. Every now and again Fitz wonders if it’s too much, if he needs to take a step back, but then he thinks of something else he needs to tell her or she writes him with a new suggestion that makes ideas pulse at his fingertips and he tells that part of him to be quiet. It’s not as though he’s totally lost the rest of his life. Sundays are sacred Hunter-and-football days, no matter what—he even turns off his phone, and does his level best not to think about Jemma. He succeeds more than he fails, he thinks, until Hunter throws a pillow in his face one Sunday in the middle of August.

“Mate, you’re not even paying attention.”

“Am so!” he protests, “that was a clear yellow card violation _utterly_ ignored by the ref.”

Hunter just looks at him, disgusted. “That was twenty minutes ago. You’re killing me here. Is it the girl? Are you thinking about the girl again?”

“No!”

“Really.” Hunter drops his chin to peer over invisible glasses. “Your phone is off and you still keep looking at it. You’ve mentioned her, oh, twenty or thirty times. Can you put us out of our misery and just admit you like her?”

“Of course I like her.”

Hunter groans. “Not like her, you ninny. _Like_ her. This would be so much easier to deal with if we didn’t have to pretend you weren’t head over heels for her.”

The sound from the television reaches a fever pitch, then dies away into a collective moan. Neither Fitz nor Hunter looks to see what’s happened. “I’m not,” he says, sounding lame even to his own ears. “We’re friends. That’s all.”

Reaching for the remote, Hunter blindly pauses the match. “Look, I don’t really want to have this conversation with you, but someone has to. You might be friends, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t also crazy about her. It’s only natural, Fitz, you’ve basically been dating for three months.”

“We have—”

“All right, maybe I’m wrong.” World-weary, Hunter sighs. “Just—look, you’ve got an equation here: Fitz + Jemma = x. Solve for x, before you break your own heart and leave the rest of us to pick up the pieces. And now we aren’t going to talk about it anymore.”

The game restarts, but Fitz hardly notices it; every synapse in his brain is buzzing, trying to carry the right information to the right places to make sense of it. Dating Jemma? Being in love with Jemma? It doesn’t seem _necessarily_ like that has to be true, as he’s had many friends over the years he’s spent a decent amount of time with. No one would say he was in love with any of them. Though, to be fair, he didn’t have the overwhelming desire to be with them constantly, or the ability to talk to them on any subject at any hour of the day, or the quickened heart rate whenever he thought about them. He had never struggled to find a word for the relationships, confident in calling them _mates_ or _lads_ or _friends_ —even Hunter, the best friend he had ever had. Jemma, though—she’s friend and colleague, partner, and something else. Something... _more._

He thinks about the conversation for the next two weeks straight, totally ignoring his lesson plans, and comes to a conclusion: he might not be in love with Jemma—he doesn’t know, because he’s never been in love before, and while this feeling is new he’s hesitant to name it just on Hunter’s say-so. But he thinks he _could_ be. Maybe now, definitely in the future. And if he thinks this is a possibility, he ought to say something, and soon, or they might be wasting more time. And if their friendship is so good, maybe something else would be...?

 _This might not be a good time_ , he texts her at midnight the day before they’re supposed to go to the office to reorganise their bookshelves, _but would you like to go to dinner with me? Someplace nice._

Immediately he sends it, he knows he’s made a huge mistake. You don’t send something like that in a _text_ , not even if your relationship began in text-based communication. It’s not sweet, it’s stupid. Shoving his phone deep into his sofa cushions, he spends the rest of the night learning to code so he can someday invent an app to take back mis-sent text messages, and rolls into Bobbi’s office the next morning with bags under his eyes and panic in his throat.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Bobbi says, not looking up from her email. “Stop shaking your leg; you’re making my screen jiggle.”

Fitz scowls, attempts to do as she asks, and fails miserably. “Aren’t you supposed to be the sympathetic older sister type?”

“When the situation calls for it, absolutely. This situation calls for some old-fashioned calling it like it is.”

“I shouldn’t have—”

“Of course not, that was a really dumb thing to do, but it’s done now, and it will be fine.”

“She’s going to kick me out.” He slides down further in the chair and buries his face in his hands. “Do you have any boxes I can use to cart my books?”

“Fitz.” Bobbi slams her laptop shut and just looks at him, exasperation entirely hiding any softer emotions she might be feeling. “Just go to your office. I promise, it’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“That’s not for me to say. But it will.”

Bobbi goes back to her email with her mouth in the firm line that means she’s done talking. There won’t be anything more from her in way of either comfort or advice. Fitz sits a minute longer, queasily savoring the last few minutes he expects to enjoy his life, before heaving himself to his feet and making his way to their office. Her office.

The door is ajar, but he knocks anyway. “Jemma? Are you here?”

There’s no answer. It’s unlike her to leave the door unlocked with no one there but even more unlikely that she would use the silent treatment, so he pushes through and is unsurprised to find the office empty. Well, not empty; there’s an open box on the desk and her jumper’s thrown over the student chair. She’s here, then, but not here. Fitz sighs, shoving his hands in his pockets. About right. Going over to the bookshelves, he looks for the purple geodes, figuring at the least he can sort out which of the books there are his to get them out of her way. But the geodes aren’t in their normal place by the small empty space on the right-hand shelf, having moved to a new space by the biology books and been replaced by what looks like a picture on a tiny easel. Frowning, Fitz leans in to figure out what that could possibly stand for. There must be a reason, but—

He sucks in a breath, reaching out to pick up the picture. His own face smiles from the frame, Jemma’s right next to it—a selfie they took at the zoo, when she had used his fondness for monkeys against him.

“You found it, then,” she says from behind him.

He whirls, picture still in hand, and knows that he’s blushing. “Jemma, I don’t understand.”

“It’s for our new section—the things we write together. It’s just one shelf for now, but we’ll need more space in time. We’ve got plenty of ideas.”

“Right,” he says, “er, yes. But I thought—”

“We can trade it out with another picture, if you like. I think that’s the best we’ve got so far, but never say never.”

“Yes, but.” He shakes his head, carefully returning the picture to its place. “I’m sorry, did you get my message last night? If you didn’t, that’s all right, but—”

“Fitz!” Setting down the drinks he hadn’t noticed she was carrying, she comes to stand in front of him, twisting her fingers together. “I’m trying to tell you. Of course I got your message. Yes, I’d love to go to dinner with you, someplace nice. That is, as long as you meant it like I think you did.”

“Like a date,” he says, just to make sure.

Her smile almost blinds him, just as it had the first time he met her. “Then yes. Absolutely. Shall we do it soon? Only once the semester starts we’ll have to be responsible and go to bed at a decent time, and I’d rather like—well.”

His blush only grows, matching hers, but he manages to nod fervently, stuffing his hands in his pockets in a no-doubt failed attempt to look cool. “Tonight? Once we finish setting up the books?”

“Absolutely,” she says again, “and I mean that in the way science says can’t be possible. Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

“Well,” he blusters, “why didn’t you?”

She laughs aloud, bringing her hands up to her face. “I don’t know! I suppose I thought we already were, sometime in the summer there. If I had thought about it at all. But generally I just thought you were brilliant and handsome and such a lovely person, and that I was glad to be your friend.”

“And we’ll still be friends,” he says.

“Absolutely. But I have a hypothesis it’ll also be nice to date you.”

On Fitz’s second first day of teaching, he opens the door to his office and takes a deep breath, relishing the smell of books and lemon oil and a plug-in air freshener Jemma brought from home. Shoving the box of second-string books to the side with his foot, he walks over to put his computer on the desk and smiles to find the envelope neatly squared in the centre of the space.

 

> _Dear Dr. Fitz,_
> 
> _Welcome to Carter 616 and your second year! You’ve been such an asset to the department already, I know we can expect great things from you. A few housekeeping notes:_
> 
>   1. _Tea’s hot in the drawer_
>   2. _Weaver is already on the warpath_
>   3. _I’ve brought leftovers from yesterday for both of us; they’re in the sack in the fridge_
>   4. _I’ve had the best summer holidays of my life. I hope you have too!_
> 

> 
> _Love,_
> 
> _Jemma_

 


End file.
